The Pretoria Agreement: mere cessation of hostilities or heralding a new era in Ethiopia?

SUMMARY

On 2 November 2022, welcome news came from Pretoria, South Africa. After 10 days of negotiations, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. This piece situates the importance of the war, and more importantly the agreement, within the longue durée of Ethiopian politics and highlights its importance as a turning point marking the end of the era of the dominance of the TPLF and the beginning of the end of ethno-nationalism's hegemonic centrality to national politics, including at the expense of the Ethiopian state.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethiopia
• Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)
• civil war
• Cessation of Hostilities
• Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF)
• Pretoria Agreement

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank colleagues and friends who commented on the earlier drafts of this piece.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Notes

1 The Tigrayan forces are called TDF in Tigray and by some foreign media outlets. This name was preferred as many youth joined the fight as the TPLF deserted Mekelle and went to the valleys and gorges of Tigray. Partly pushed by atrocities committed during fighting, youth of various political inclinations, including leaders of opposition political parties, joined the armed rebellion in Tigray. Another factor contributing to this choice is the TPLF’s representation of itself as a legitimate regional/independent government with an army. After the CoHA was signed, the Tigrayan diaspora resisted the agreement by stressing that there is no TPLF army, thus claiming that the requirement to demobilisation does not refer to the TDF. On 11 November 2022 the TPLF Central Committee stated that it does not have an army. Furthermore, Gen. Tadesse Werede was presented as the Chief of Tigray Armed Combatants at the agreement in Nairobi, on 12 November on the implementation of the CoHA.

2 For instance, the Global Society of Tigray Scholars & Professionals (GSTS) ‘strongly opposes several provisions of the CoHA that directly contrive the vital interests of the people of Tigray and defeat the stated objective to achieve lasting peace’. One of the provisions it rejected pertains to disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR), which it says leaves ‘the people of Tigray in the hands of forces accused of horrendous atrocity crimes’ (‘Statement: Ethiopia - Tigray Peace Talks need to urgently enact the immediate, verified, & permanent withdrawal of invading Eritrean forces’. Accessed 14 November 2022. https://twitter.com/GlobalGsts/status/1591611270591119361).

3 This does not necessarily contradict the policing interests of the regions. As per the intentions of the Police Doctrine, the elastic definitions of this power to establish Special Forces by the regions will be limited to agreed bounds, with the ENDF having a major say (see Article 87 of the FDRE Constitution and Proclamation 1100/2019 of the ENDF).

4 For example, World Bank data show that Tigray benefited from an above average improvement in road density between 2006 and 2016, along with Addis Ababa and central Oromia (Kanth and Geiger 2017). Data related to food aid and basic assistance, however, show that about one million citizens in Tigray were beneficiaries of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) and an additional 250,000 were permanent direct support beneficiaries when the war broke out in late 2020 (FEWS NET 2020).

5 The six demands are: restoration of essential services to the people of Tigray; unfettered humanitarian access; an end to ongoing war crimes; accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide; withdrawal of all foreign forces from Tigray; and the restoration of the boundaries of Tigray as they existed prior to the outbreak of hostilities (i.e. the return of Western Tigray). See ‘Open Letter from the President of the Government of Tigray’, 23 August 2022, at https://twitter.com/TigrayEAO/status/1562446942466342913.

6 Many private, digital platforms on YouTube and Telegram have been actively reporting on the security situation and challenging the narratives of the mainstream media.

7 See the following tweets as examples: https://twitter.com/afitz3105/status/1588956595324870657; https://twitter.com/BronwynBruton/status/1587864305772412928.

8 See https://twitter.com/KjetilTronvoll/status/1587924764446060545.

9 See https://twitter.com/RAbdiAnalyst/status/1589288278574129153.

10 See https://twitter.com/rene_renelefort/status/1587907852559175681.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fana Gebresenbet

Fana Gebresenbet is Director and an associate professor of peacebuilding and development at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies of Addis Ababa University. He has co-edited two books, Lands of the future (Berghahn, 2021) and Youth on the move (Hurst, 2021), and published numerous journal articles and book chapters. His research interests cover the politics of development, political economy and peacebuilding in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

Yonas Tariku

Yonas Tariku is a lecturer and academic coordinator of the MA programme at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies of Addis Ababa University. His primary research focus is on national and regional security in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa; his publications focus on peace, conflict and security. Since 2015, he has also been part-time trainer at the Ethiopian National Defence Force’s International Peace Support Training Institute.